Poultry carriers and methods of restraining poultry are described herein.
The processing of poultry may include activities such as sexing to determine gender, inoculating or otherwise medicating the birds, feeding the birds, weighing the birds, treating the beaks and/or claws of the birds (to, e.g., retard their growth), etc. Conventionally, birds are handled manually, i.e., individuals must physically hold the bird and either perform the process while holding the bird or load the bird into equipment in which one of the processes is performed.
In many cases, the birds may be restrained by their heads as described in, e.g., U.S. Pat. No. 5,651,731 (Gorans et al.) with the remainder of the bird being either manually restrained or unrestrained.